


Hot Stuff

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Prompt Fills [49]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Hot Tub, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-16 06:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Clara locks herself in her hotel room, and the Doctor tries to get to the bottom of why.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: Prompt Fills [49]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/585397
Comments: 12
Kudos: 73





	Hot Stuff

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt:
> 
> _A pairing of your choice. Character A decided to spend the whole holiday in the room’s hot tub. Character B is forced to join them for some reason._

“Clara?” the Doctor called, knocking on the door of his companion’s hotel room tentatively and feeling a lurching sense of worry when she didn’t answer immediately. Her behaviour on this trip had been erratic, with her disappearing back to her room for prolonged periods, and while he was not an expert in human behaviour, he was an expert in _Clara’s_ behaviour, and this was very much unlike her.

The trip had been meticulously planned, in a digression from his usual haphazard style, not least because this hotel was the sort of place that did not take kindly to unexpected guests, psychic paper or no psychic paper. The waiting list was several centuries long, and it had taken an exceptional amount of organisation and a staggering amount of coercion of the TARDIS to get the dates exactly right and thus prevent any hotel-related disasters.

The hotel in question, orbiting several thousand feet above a planet covered almost entirely with seas of liquid sapphires, was luxurious, certainly. There was every possible convenience that you could think of, including a spa and thirteen restaurants, but despite all the amenities on offer, the Doctor knew that Clara would much prefer to be exploring the planet below, thus her self-imposed isolation was even more deeply concerning. He had run through dozens of likely scenarios in his head, each more outlandish, unlikely and depressing than the last, and as he stood at the door in silence, he felt his panic threatening to race out of control yet again.

“Come in,” she called at last in an exhausted voice, and he stepped inside with trepidation, feeling a momentary stab of worry as he discovered the room to be full of white vapour before realising that it was steam from the hot tub in the corner. Each room had one and he’d wasted no time in sonicking the one in his room into silence, the incessant bubbling threatening to drive him mad, and besides – hot tubs were the sort of thing that humans liked, and he wasn’t human. The fact that using it involved wearing less than three layers of clothing was, he would argue if pressed, neither here nor there. Getting into a hot tub was the sort of thing Clara would have usually teased him about doing, only she hadn’t, and that was concerning in itself.

The Doctor tried to calm his racing hearts as he blinked hard and ventured further into the room, approaching the hot tub and noticing that Clara was safely ensconced in it, her eyes closed and wearing only-

Oh, goodness. That was a lot more of Clara than he was used to seeing. He thanked Rassilon for the steam and the bubbles.

“Doctor?” she said feebly, opening her eyes with visible effort and focusing on him with difficulty. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” he managed, unsure where exactly to look. Despite the temperature in the room, Clara looked pale and washed-out, and he felt another flare of worry at her unusually peaky condition. “You, urm... you... I...”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her voice unusually rough. “I’ve been coming down with this fluey thing and I feel terrible; being in the hot water with all the steam is the only thing that helps.”

Relief flooded his system as he understood that no, she wasn’t dying and no, she didn’t hate him; she was merely ill. Well. ‘Merely’ ill. His brain began to race off into further worry – hadn’t people died of flu? Quite a lot of people, in fact, and-

“You should have said,” he said gruffly, interrupting his own train of thought before it could get out of control. “I’d have helped.”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” she closed her eyes again and leant her head back against the edge of the tub. “Or ruin our trip. You planned this so carefully.”

“You won’t… you haven’t. Ruined the trip, that is. I _was_ worried, though. I thought you were avoiding me.”

“No, I just needed the heat,” she smiled weakly, then patted the water beside her in a friendly, vaguely inviting motion that he tried not to read too deeply into. Surely she couldn’t mean… “Why don’t you climb in? It’s nice and warm, and we could chat. We haven’t done much of that.”

“I...” the Doctor’s cheeked turned maroon as he realised what she was suggesting. “But you’re...”

“Doctor, just get in the hot tub,” Clara said firmly, affixing him with a stern expression, her teacher mannerisms apparently unaffected by her illness. “Please. I would like to spend _some_ time with you on this trip.”

“But I…” a get-out clause appeared to him in a shining instant. “I didn’t pack my swimming trunks.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Clara rolled her eyes impatiently. “You’ve got underpants on, haven’t you? They’re basically the same thing, and you can change into dry ones when you get out. Just… please. I’ve hardly seen you and I feel weird with you there just looming over me like you’re making me into a soup or something.”

“Time Lords don’t eat people,” he said mechanically, his brain still just about capable of banter despite the extreme weirdness of the entire situation. “Not least because you’d taste terrible.”

“Good to know. Stop avoiding the issue. Get in.”

“But you’re…” he waved his hands vaguely, feeling himself turn as red as his jacket. “Not very clothed.”

“What, was I meant to get in here in all my layers from Victorian London? I’d probably have drowned.”

“It’s not deep enough to drown in.”

“A human can technically drown in two inches of water, Doctor, which means I could theoretically also drown in a sink. Stop-”

“Well that’s terrible evolutionary biology. Why did your species develop the ability to do that? It seems highly dangerous in terms of survival of the fittest, and a very poor choice given that over two-thirds of your planet is covered in water.”

“Get in the sodding hot tub. The pissed-off, sick English teacher demands it.”

“Fine,” he muttered, beginning to unbutton his coat with determinedly stubborn slowness. “I’m warning you; this won’t be a pretty sight though.”

“I don’t really care much what the sight is. I just want you get in.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my friend and friends share hot tubs.”

 _Do they_? the Doctor wondered idly, arching an eyebrow once he was sure she couldn’t see him. _Must have missed that memo._

“Also, you’re making me feel weird looming over me, as previously mentioned. It’s a little creepy; I feel like you’re my actual doctor or something.”

“Fine,” he reiterated, casting his jacket in the general direction of her bed and then starting to unbutton his shirt. “What Clara wants, she gets.”

“‘What Clara wants, she gets’,” Clara repeated smugly, and he kicked himself for feeding her ego. “I like that. I’m using that.”

“Egomaniac.”

“Shut up. You’re just annoyed I look this good in swimwear, ill or not ill.”

If anything, his cheeks went even redder. He was unsure whether they would ever recover from this; perhaps he would just be permanently maroon from now on. At least it’d match his coat.

Clara laughed, although not unkindly, before dissolving into a spate of coughing, and he lurched towards her reflexively, almost falling into the sunken tub as he did so. After letting out a spectacular wave of cursing in Gallifreyan, he righted himself and shrugged out of his shirt, before crouching down and starting to unlace his boots.

“Sorry,” she managed after a moment, regaining her composure with some difficulty. “About the coughing, and about… what is _that_?”

“What’s what?” he asked, levering off his right Doc Marten and depositing it on the floor with a _thunk_ before starting on the left.

“What’s that on your top half?”

“A vest,” he said magnanimously. “Have you never seen one before?”

“You are not wearing a vest in here.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s probably sweaty and gross.”

“I mean…” he dithered for a moment, then decided to throw caution to the wind. “Strictly speaking, so are my underpants, most likely, although I don’t really sweat, so…”

“Well, your underpants are a necessity for modesty’s sake. As you don’t have secondary sexual organs on your chest, and as your vest will inflate with the bubbles; vest, off.”

With great reluctance, the Doctor peeled off his vest, then kicked off his remaining Doc Marten and removed both of his socks. Unbuttoning his tartan trousers and dropping them to the floor, he stepped smoothly into the tub in a bid to minimise the amount of time that Clara could spend staring at him in a general state of undress, and then sank down in the water until it reached his chin, glowering as he did so.

“You are a prat,” Clara said fondly, reaching over and taking his hand. “Hello. Welcome to my hot tub.”

“Mmf,” he said sourly, before his mood softened as she gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “S’alright, I suppose.”

“It’s better now you’re here,” Clara mumbled, scooting around until she was next to him and placing her head upon his shoulder. “Much, much better.”


End file.
